He had served his country, going to wars, doing operations others wouldn't dare do nor have the guts to do so. He lost many men, brothers and sisters due to the earth wars fighting over limited resources as their home planet continued to die more and more.
A planet that once was rumored to be filled with vast forests and clean waters and where humans could once live on Earth's lands without eco packs and masks glued to their face to filter clean air.
Despite the Earth dying quickly, humans like a disease, cockroaches found a way to prolong their lives. Building even more cities but ones entirely of walls and filtration systems to pump filtered clean air into its halls and giant rooms. Levels were made with the rich being at the top and the poor to the bottom.
And still they all fought, they always were fighting and He was thrown into the fighting, a soldier, a commander, a colonel. Fighting for his country of endless mazes of filtration walls with small homes in them. All to be barely considered middle class.
He fucking hated it all.
Quaritch breathed the filtered air from his mask as he stood outside the large doors of the city of walls he lived in. His shift was nearly over. He just had to carry on for another half hour and then he could go home, shower, put on clothes that weren't covered in toxic dust and ash and sit down with his fiancé.
He huffed out the carbon from his lungs exhaling it out of the mask as he watched the wind pick up slinging dust and ash over the dead landscape. He could not fathom an Earth that was covered in plants and forests and even clean water, because even now as he walked the city's borders taking in the barren lands of dust and ash and the rivers of tar and slog it was an unbelievable thought.
Paz liked keeping hologram screens around their unit playing simulations of what such a landscape would look like, having them even over their two windows that look out to the dead landscape to make it look like there was a vast forest with clean waterfalls instead.
He wondered if she would even be home before him, her work was endless being an engineer she was always on call to fix some fucking thing. He admired her handiwork, she was one of the important workers in the cities, making sure the filtration system and environmental systems stayed on top notch standing at all times. Any time a filter leak happened she was called immediately, no matter the time of day or night. He sighed wondering what they had in storage to make a meal with, for if she wasnt there when he got home he would then shower and make them dinner.
The thought of powdered meat and sustainable greens didn't appeal to his stomach not one bit, it brought back more anger. The upper classes actually enjoy the real shit.
Real meat, real fresh greens and fruit. They got to eat meals he couldn't even imagine and it pissed him off.
He should be able to buy real fucking food for himself and his fiancé. He should be able to enjoy basic fucking needs, why did those pansy bastards get too? He would love to see one of them suited up in protective suits, a mask glued to their face and trudge around in the hot dusty atmosphere their ancestors caused by sweating their balls off and coming home to eat powdered sustainable food.
His ecopack beeped its warnings of needing cleaning and he forced a low growl before turning and walking back to the large doors slamming his keycard against its security panel allowing him into the sanitary station. He stood still as it sprayed off the toxic ash and dust from his body and vacuumed it out by exit shoots before allowing him to the next room where he could strip off the protective suit and gear. Sweat sheened on his skin as it was exposed to the cool filtered oxygen of the city. He breathed, feeling his lungs greedily accept the cooler 'cleaner' air as he watched his recruited replacements take their shifts leaving through the doors to the shitty atmosphere outside. He watched the doors open and close a dust storm brewing behind them.
poor bastards.
He thought before he moved heading to the holo computer to clock his times file paperwork and then headed to the lift that raised him to his living level. Walking through the vast halls of the city and past the stores he watched bots move doing delivery services and the other humans of this city move around doing shopping.
Parents walking around with their kids buying them pointless shit that will end up outside of the city walls once the brat gets tired of it, making the outside even worse than before.
He walked past simulations of decorated trees that hurt his eyes along with the florescent lights of the city.
Finally arriving at his and Paz's unit he walked inside seeing all the lights off.
He let out a sigh trudging through the living room and towards the bathroom flicking on the light as he stripped his clothes and climbed into the shower having its hot sanitation water pour over him and his skin. His skin prickled under it slightly stinging as he stared at the showers tiles avoiding the sanitation water to burn his eyes.
Grime and dust that made under his suit washed down his body and into the drain with its murky color.
I gotta get us the fuck outta here.
Gritting his teeth as he glared at the tiles.
There were rumors, rumores that the top level had real fucking plants as decoration.
They didn't have as many filtration systems because of real plants producing real oxygen. They had clean water, drinkable water.
not packed water, or water cleaner packets to mix into the sanitation water to make it safe for consumption. But real fresh clean water.
Real food, They had an environment system that was supposedly like how the Earth was supposed to be hundreds of years ago before great wars fucked everything up.
He wanted that.
God, he wanted that so badly.
Dinner was nothing but slop in a bowl and he glared down at it as his spoon scooped it up and brought its dull color to his lips.
"I got a raise today." Paz's voice called to him and he glanced up at her from his bowl. Her brunette hair thrown into a messy bun and her dull green eyes surrounded by dark circles much like his own, her skin not pale but gray like his own it looked as lifeless as the ash and dust outside in her bright clothes she wore.
"Yea?" He asked her, forcing a smile on his lips.
lifeless, they looked so lifeless in here..
Paz smiled back at him and nodded.
"I was thinking…maybe we could look at some of the units on the south side of the city..something bigger." She told him.
He moved his eyes back to the slop in his bowl.
"Paz." He warned.
"You gotten a raise last month and now i have one, maybe a few more months and we could find a really nice unit and start thinking about ki-"
"Paz enough." He snapped, glaring up at her to pause, her dull green eyes dulling even more.
fuck.
He didn't mean to snap, he really didn't. His anger was misguided and he let it focus on her like he always seemed to do in these past few months.
He only sat in silence as she moved from their shared table with that bowl of slop of hers and took it to the kitchen leaving it and heading to their room. the slide of doors ringing in his ears as he was left alone. He slammed his hand on the table gritting his teeth, feeling his rage build through his body, tensing his muscles, flexing them before he let out a sigh and dragging his hands up his face into his hair pulling on it.
"Fuck.." He grumbled letting his head fall back and his hands falling to his lap he stared at the ceiling for a while until he forced himself up to gather his bowl and take it to the kitchen washing his and Paz's dishes before cleaning the kitchen.
He went ahead and packed his and Paz's lunch pouches for the next day before he headed to the bedroom and met with the lights turned off and Paz already in bed. He stared at her back as he moved under the covers. He stared at it for a few moments watching her steady breathing before reaching out and pulling her towards him. Wrapping his arm around her, He held her close burying his face into the back of her neck.
"I'm sorry.." He whispered, only met with her breathing steady and soft, his apology fell on sleeping ears.
He moved his hand to hers where the simple plain engagement hand rested, he dragged his fingers over it before clasping her hand in his.
"I want more for us Paz…Ya get that right? I don't want another shit hole of a unit with the slop they feed us with..I want more. I want us up there with the other rich bastards. " He whispered to her as he kissed her shoulder blade.
"I want ya to have real plants hanging around the unit, not some screen…I want us to eat real food Paz, us and any little tikes we have..not that gritty ass shit we ate tonight…" He let out a shaky breath and pressed another kiss to her shoulder before settling his head on the pillow staring at the back of her head, rubbing his thumb over hers.
"Ima get us out of this shitty level..Just be patient with me Sweetheart." He whispered out the promise he always whispered to her each night.
She had to understand, she had to feel the urge to want more too, right? She must know how much she deserved then the shitty hole in a wall unit they had.
He just needed her to stay patient with him, he will give her so much more than this, his secret promise to her the day he got on his knee.
A better life, one where she didn't have to work if she didn't wish it, where his pay would be plentiful to carry them and their children. They live in some nice unit up on the upper levels and he could surprise her with a new plant to add to her collection. Their kids would never have to breathe in contaminated air due to a filtration leak and get sick stuck in medical units for months or years because the outsides dust and ash had radiation infecting their lungs. They wouldn't be so…lifeless.
"I promise." He whispered holding his fiancé so tightly to his chest afraid that if he let go she too would fade away into the dust like so many of his past friends did in the war zones he had been in.
The dust he was going to vanish in as well had she not met him the day they met.
He had stared at the exit doors, sweat dripping from his brow as he moved his hand towards the keypad. The protective suit and ecopack in the other clearance room. His hand didn't tremble as he was about to tap the keypad with his keycard.
They were always told that being out in the outside atmosphere without protection suits and gear, without their eco packs and masks that they'd be dead by suffocation within minutes.
He had felt so numb, that the thought of dying so painfully by suffocation didn't scare him. If anything it had excited him, he had felt nothing since his last mission, where he had lost his best friend by a gunshot in the head, lost all his teammates and was the only one who arrived at the checkpoint alive but wounded. He had wanted the lung infection he got from his suit and ecopack being damaged to take him out as well…It didn't, he survived while his team all died.
He licked his lips, as he pressed the keycard to the panel hearing the loud beeps it made and the door starting to open breaking its seals as it heavily gilded open.
Dust flying into the room, some of it hitting his face and burying into his hair as he squinted his eyes, lashes protecting his pupils as the doors slowly exposed him to the dead earth's atmosphere.
"HEY WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?" a voice screamed at him and he had turned surprised that someone was even up at this hour. But there she was, a woman shorter than him storming over to a computer panel viciously typing away at the holo screen forcing the door to beep and glide shut.
"ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY!?" she yelled at him as the sanitation began spraying him down with chemicals and what not before deeming him clean. She had stormed in snatching him out of the room, easy with the daze he was in and she ripped him a new one all while he stared at her like she was a lunatic.
"Whats your fucking name?" She demanded of him.
He had licked his lips staring at her, taking in her bright furious green eyes.
"Miles…Miles Quaritch." He told her.
"Well Miles Quaritch..Yoru a fucking dumbass!"
And he laughed, he laughed harder than he ever believed he had in his life as she stared at him like he was a madman.
"Ya have no clue sweetheart." He had crackled out and she had huffed running a hand in her hair before sitting beside him.
"I'll make ya a deal, you meet me at the dindime dinner for lunch everyday and i won't report you." She told him.
He raised a brow at her.
"It's not a choice so you know." She clarified before getting up and leaving before he could answer.
The next day, she was waiting for him outside of the dinners unit.
The days drooled on, everything was the same.
Wake up.
Get dressed.
Have breakfast with Paz if she was there, by himself if she wasn't.
Go to work.
Do the routine routes around the city borders.
Paper work.
Clock out.
Home.
shower.
make dinner or occasionally go out to eat.
sleep.
repeat.
So when his presence was demanded to the job distribution area, it had taken him by surprise. Paz had been excited, hoping it was him getting a promotion; he had worried about it being a demotion due to a shortage of workers in other areas of the imprison walls they lived in.
When he entered the private office he was met by several officials who made him sit down. They had panels open displaying some kind of planet, ships and what not, and his records.
His eyes shrunk at his records, all his military files, his ranks, his specialities.
His eyes moved towards them sharply.
"The hell is this?" He questioned feeling his body start to stim ready to defend himself, ready for attacks his brain logically knew wouldn't happen.
"How'd you like to be head of security on a base we're setting on this planet?"
He froze, eyes landing on the hologram of that planet.
The recruiters of the organization that was setting this all up information drop not landing to him as he saw the screens flash other images of the planet.
great vast forests, real forests, real trees, bright vibrate plants. Real greenery.
Crystal clear oceans and rivers, clean drinkable water that reflected the sun on it.
Real sunlight, one that could clearly be seen through a living breathing planet than hidden by dust and ash storms.
Paz would love it there…
He moved his attention back realizing they were waiting for him to answer, he had missed everything they had said.
He made them repeat it and he listened to every single word.
"I ain't leaving without my fiancé." He started sternly as he leaned back into the chair.
it was too good to be true, and it was, they only wanted him and him alone.
He wouldn't leave her, he wouldn't leave Paz behind.
"...We can make sure your fiancé will have a spot on the ship." the head RDA recruiter spoke as She slid a holotablet over to him.
"All we need is you to confirm the job." She had told him.
He signed, not reading over the contract of the job. What he would be putting himself through, he didn't care.
He would be able to get him and Paz out of that shitty unit they lived in. They would be somewhere even fucking better than the upper levels. A new planet, a new Earth and he would be able to see the woman he loves surrounded by vast forests and clean waters.
He would do whatever the hell the RDA wanted him to do, without hesitation.
He was ecstatic as they told him when they were to leave. He had rushed home making sure to page Paz to be home. He had practically ripped the sliding doors apart as he entered their unit seeing her stand from their couch confusion in her eyes as she looked up at him.
"Quaritch?" she questioned as he rushed towards her hands going to his waist as he picked her up spinning them around grinning widely his cheeks hurt. She squealed , clinging to him and laughed.
"What is going on? good news?" She asked excitedly as he was.
"Good news? Baby girl i got fucking fantastic news ." He told her before pulling her into a deep kiss, when he pulled away he explained everything and he laughed as she squealed telling him to stop wasting time and to help her pack their things.
By the end of the week they were boarding a ship, being put into cryo chambers.
He stared at Paz across from him watching her settle in place and look at him for assurance. He smiled at her as the chambers turned on.
"I love ya." He told her, watching how she smiled.
"I love you too, Quaritch." She answered.
"I can't wait to see you on that planet." He told her feeling his eyelids grow heavy, if she had said anything he didn't hear her as his body shut down in a deep comatose sleep, frozen in time and place as the ship took its human passages light years away from earth to this bizarre resource full, living planet.
Pandora
They named it Pandora.